...the first ever winner of the BBC's Goal of the Season competition - Ernie Hunt of Coventry City.
Image: BBC
That iconic donkey kick by Willie Carr, followed by Hunt's perfectly executed volley secured 37.6% of our votes, with another Coventry favourite, Keith Houchen, placing second with 33% of the vote. Third place went to Justin Fashanu's beautiful looping volley for Norwich against Liverpool in 1980 with 4.6% of the vote.
All in all, we received 109 votes, 71% of which were for the top two in our poll. You can say what you like about democracy, but Coventry fans certainly know how to mobilise their support when there's pride at stake!
Our thanks to everyone that took part in our vote-off, and here once again are your top three goals...
1st Place: Goal 1 Ernie Hunt (for Coventry City against Everton, 3 October 1970)
2nd Place: Goal 17 Keith Houchen (for Coventry City against Tottenham Hotspur, 16 May 1987)
3rd Place: Goal 10 Justin Fashanu (for Norwich City against Liverpool, 9 February 1980)
For years it was the gold standard of football quality. Twenty-five yard screamers, fabulous team efforts, flying headers... they've all featured in the BBC's Goal of the Season competition over the last 45 years, and for a lucky few, the ultimate accolade has been theirs. Thanks to the votes sent in on the back of a postcard or sealed down envelope (latterly championed by a self-imposed panel of 'experts'), a succession of goals have been crowned the greatest seen on BBC Television every season, and they in turn have attained legendary status.
To score a BBC Goal of the Season requires talent, technique and skill. For several decades, however, you'd have needed a sizable portion of luck too. It was only comparatively recently that the BBC Match of the Day cameras started covering every match in England's top flight, but in the days before the Premier League, you were more likely to see the highlights of only a few games from the four divisions of the Football League every weekend. As a goalscorer of considerable ambition, the chances of scoring a goal capable of being remembered for generations was slim enough without the randomness of getting it captured for all posterity.
But lets now celebrate the goals that made it; the Goals of the Season, as shown on BBC television since 1970, and choose the greatest of them all. Listed below are all 45 winners of the BBC Goal of the Season competition, and we invite you to watch them all and savour their beautiful brilliance. Once you've done that, we'd like you vote for your favourite at the foot of this page. No need to write your three goals in order of preference on the back of a postcard - just type in the number of your top goal and technology will do the rest. The closing date for entries is 10 November 2015.
Goal 1 Ernie Hunt (for Coventry City against Everton, 3 October 1970)
Goal 2 Ronnie Radford (for Hereford United against Newcastle United, 5 February 1972)
Goal 3 Peter Osgood (for Chelsea against Arsenal, 17 March 1973
Goal 4 Alan Mullery (for Fulham against Leicester City, 26 January 1974)
Goal 5 Mickey Walsh (for Blackpool against Sunderland, 1 February 1975)
Goal 6 Gerry Francis (for Queens Park Rangers against Liverpool, 16 August 1975)
Goal 7 Terry McDermott (for Liverpool against Everton, 23 April 1977)
Goal 8 Archie Gemmill (for Nottingham Forest against Arsenal, 21 January 1978)
Goal 9 Ray Kennedy (for Liverpool against Derby County, 24 February 1979)
Goal 10 Justin Fashanu (for Norwich City against Liverpool, 9 February 1980)
Goal 11 Tony Morley (for Aston Villa against Everton, 7 February 1981)
Goal 12 Cyrille Regis (for West Bromwich Albion against Norwich City, 13 February 1982)
Goal 13 Kenny Dalglish (for Scotland against Belgium, 15 December 1982)
Goal 14 Danny Wallace (for Southampton against Liverpool, 16 March 1984)
Goal 15 Graeme Sharp (for Everton against Liverpool, 20 October 1984
Goal 16 Bryan Robson (for England against Israel, 26 February 1986
Goal 17 Keith Houchen (for Coventry City against Tottenham Hotspur, 16 May 1987)
Goal 18 John Aldridge (for Liverpool against Nottingham Forest, 9 April 1988)
Goal 19 John Aldridge (for Liverpool against Everton, 20 May 1989)
Goal 20 Ian Wright (for Crystal Palace against Manchester United, 12 May 1990)
Goal 21 Paul Gascoigne (for Tottenham Hotspur against Arsenal, 14 April 1991)
Goal 22 Mickey Thomas (for Wrexham against Arsenal, 4 January 1992)
Goal 23 Dalian Atkinson (for Aston Villa against Wimbledon, 3 October 1992)
Goal 24 Rod Wallace (for Leeds United against Tottenham Hotspur, 17 April 1994)
Goal 25 Matthew Le Tissier (for Southampton against Blackburn Rovers, 10 December 1994
Goal 26 Tony Yeboah (for Leeds United against Wimbledon, 23 September 1995)
Goal 27 Trevor Sinclair (for Queens Park Rangers against Barnsley, 25 January 1997)
Goal 28 Dennis Bergkamp (for Arsenal against Leicester City, 27 August 1997)
Goal 29 Ryan Giggs (for Manchester United against Arsenal, 14 April 1999)
Goal 30 Paolo di Canio (for West Ham United against Wimbledon, 26 march 2000)
Goal 31 Shaun Bartlett (for Charlton Athletic against Leicester City, 1 April 2001)
Goal 32 Dennis Bergkamp (for Arsenal against Newcastle United, 2 March 2002)
Goal 33 Thierry Henry (for Arsenal against Tottenham Hotspur, 16 November 2002)
Goal 34 Dietmar Hamann (for Liverpool against Portsmouth, 17 March 2004)
Goal 35 Wayne Rooney (for Manchester United against Middlesbrough, 29 January 2005)
Goal 36 Steven Gerrard (for Liverpool against West Ham United, 13 May 2006)
Goal 37 Wayne Rooney (for Manchester United against Bolton Wanderers, 17 March 2007)
Goal 38 Emmanuel Adebayor (for Arsenal against Tottenham Hotspur, 15 September 2007)
Goal 39 Glen Johnson (for Portsmouth against Hull City, 22 November 2008)
Goal 40 Maynor Figueroa (for Wigan Athletic against Stoke City, 12 December 2009)
Goal 41 Wayne Rooney (for Manchester United against Manchester City, 12 February 2011)
By my reckoning, it’s 83 great goals, 15 that might be great and 3 that definitely aren't, but that’s just me being pedantic. And besides, it would have been a far longer and more cumbersome title for a VHS tape that I recall seeing virtually everywhere back in the late 1980’s.
I never actually owned a VCR until 1990, but this video cassette cropped up wherever I went, from my local WH Smith to the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, London. Though the inlay cover was far from exciting, the title did rather more to stir my imagination. What were these great goals, packaged and presented for us by the BBC? How exciting would it be to watch a whole uninterrupted hour of goals, goals and yet more goals? And would I get any change from a £10 note if I bought it?
I never did find out which goals were on that tape until the internet arrived, by which time my Akai VCR was well on its way to fully decomposing along with several dozen Scotch E240 tapes of mine. Upon watching the video, one is immediately struck by how many of the goals are familiar. That’s because many of them either won the BBC’s Goal of the Season competition or were shortlisted for the accolade.
Fortunately, even where that is the case, the goals are well worth seeing anyway. As mentioned earlier, only a paltry amount could be considered ‘not great’, and even they've got some intrinsic value to them. One of them, a goal scored by Jimmy Greaves at Valley Parade on January 3 1970, consisted merely of a throw-in by Joe Kinnear, flicked on, scuffed by a Bradford defender and poked home from close range. Hardly ‘great’, but worth seeing just to witness a legendary striker doing what he does best.
A classic Liam Brady effort for Arsenal at Tottenham in 1978 acts as the basis for the most rudimentary of opening title sequences, after which the goal-laden chronology begins in 1969. Bobby Charlton crops up with two of three successive Manchester United sizzlers, then it’s Greaves at Bradford followed by Martin Chivers scoring for Tottenham at Molineux on the same day... except Tottenham couldn't possibly have been playing Bradford and Wolves on the same day. The caption shown on the Chivers goal was wrong, and this was one of a few similar cock-ups that threaten to blight the overall presentation.
No matter. The goals they kept on coming; Ernie Hunt’s brilliant volley, set up by Willie Carr’s donkey kick, George Best looping the ball over a floundering Pat Jennings, Ronnie Radford slamming a screamer into the top corner of the net against Newcastle... Iconic images paraded before our eyes garnished inevitably by the excited commentaries of Motson, Davies, Coleman and others.
Growing up as a kid in the late 1970’s, it was goals like these that were often shown on TV, almost as a reminder of how good modern-day football ought to be. Personally speaking, I was always most fond of a long-range pile-driver, flying into the roof of the net from way out. Many such goals featured on this tape from the likes of Alan Mullery, the aforementioned Ronnie Radford and, perhaps most tellingly, Johnny Metgod for Nottingham Forest against West Ham in 1986. These were the goals I tried to replicate while playing in the local park as a kid right up to playing five-a-side with my colleagues as a 37-year-old.
It’s not all ‘thirty yard thunderbolts’, however. Proof is provided that a great goal can take many forms, whether it’s from a clever chip (cf. Glenn Hoddle against Watford in 1983, Terry McDermott against Everton in 1977) or an overhead kick (cf. Danny Wallace for Southampton against Liverpool in 1984). Whatever your taste in goals, be they created from a series of neat passes or blasted in from distance, it’s fair to say you’ll be satisfied by something you see.
If there's any particular criticism to make, it's that the bigger teams feature more prominently than the smaller ones. Goals by Tottenham, Liverpool and Man United players make up more than a third of the total on their own, and those three teams appear in more than a quarter of all the clips, but maybe that's no surprise. Your average Match of the Day usually focused more on those clubs anyway, so the footage used in 101 Great Goals is simply a reflection of that.
The procession of great players, great teams and great goals continues through until 1987 (the year of release for this VHS tape) with the last goal coming from Clive Allen for Spurs against Coventry City in the FA Cup Final of that year. Somewhat disappointingly, Allen’s goal was the only one featured from that match. No Keith Houchen? Tut tut... But hey, it’s not easy putting together a selection of the best things in a particular category. Better, perhaps, to be grateful for what you’re given, and this BBC production is certainly worthy of acclaim for providing over an hour of great football entertainment.
Exactly how does one determine which of their many goals (we've all scored loads of goals right?) they'd consider to be their first?
The particular criterion I've used to decide is this: What do I regard as my first ever 'goal'?
That's it...no science here, just plain old 'what feels right' and for me, what feels right as my first goal is the first one I scored in what I regard as some form of proper match. That proper match was in games in the final few months of primary school. Yes I'd played plenty of kickabouts down the field, but they were just that, kickabouts. Nothing formal, no real competition, no ref etc. I'd also only just taken any sort of interest in football due to Mexico 86, which I may have mentioned once or twice before, so this was the first time it actually meant something to me.
And so to the goal itself. It was a Monday afternoon in early June 1986 and the last lesson of the day was games. I chatted to my friend about our differening Liverpool replica kits as we walked from the classroom up to the playing field. After some lessons on passing etc, the last half hour would involve an actual game, played up the pitch, rather than across it. (The pitch was laid out differently 26 years ago, honest!)
My memory of the goal is somewhat sketchy (until I decided to write this, I'd almost completely forgotten about it), but from what I recall, the ball came in...wait, let me do this in proper footballer speak:
Anyway, the ball's come in from the left, I've looked up and seen it, controlled it and then I've stuck it in the back of the net (between the cones). I've then proceeded in a vertical manner, escaping the Earth's atmosphere, where I've propelled myself towards, then around our planetary satelite...Brian.
Having said that, even literally being over the moon (that's what I was getting at you see), would have been nothing compared with the wild celebration run I went on...I'm not sure if I then missed kick off due to my Tardelli-like mazy run, but I didn't care, for I had scored and WHAT.A.FEELING!!!
Our school had its own Blimp-cam. (all marked positions are approximate)
The reason I'd almost forgotten about this watershed moment is I more clearly remember the first 2 goals I scored in secondary school, for they had greater significance, the first being an equaliser to make it 3-3 and the last being what turned out to be the winner - I'd made it 5-3, but they pulled one back at the death to make it 5-4. My pleasure at having scored the winner could not be diminished even by my team-mate, who'd scored our 4th, loudly proclaiming that 'it was only the winner cos they scored again'. Ah suck it up, Mr. Didn'tScoreTheWinner (not his real name).
So that was my first goal(s)...what was yours and what makes it 'the first'?
Everyone remembers Match of the Day's 'Goal of the Month' competition, but fewer people recall that ITV's The Big Match had its own version called called 'Golden Goals'.
Here's the last thrilling installment from the 1979/80 season, and note an early example of product placement on the advertising board behind the goal for Glenn Hoddle's first effort.
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